What's Left of Her: a novella (The Betrayed Trilogy)

by Campisi, Mary

  Reverend Thurston married them six months later in the vestibule of St. Michael’s Church. Every now and then Rupe wondered if he hadn’t taken advantage of Evie’s grieving, pushed a bit too hard. But he made her happy; he could see it in the way those beautiful eyes misted with tears when he told her she was the best thing that ever happened to him. His only real regret was not giving her a big, fancy wedding, but what choice did he have with her being pregnant and all? That he didn’t regret. He wanted their baby so bad, to hold a piece of Evie, a child they created together. But she miscarried three weeks after the wedding and it took another five years for Quinn to come along. And then five years later, Annalise. There were two miscarriages after that, but no more babies, not for lack of trying, that was damn sure. Rupe always pictured himself surrounded by a brood of five or six, maybe if the good Lord willed, seven children. The boys would be big and strong like him, the girls soft and black-haired like their mother. But wishing didn’t make it so, and Evie’s pregnancies were difficult, laying her up for three or four months at a stretch. Doc McPherson even put her in the hospital when she was seven months along with Annalise; toxemia, he called it. He said some women were made for babies and some weren’t, and when the ones who weren’t kept trying, through their own will or their husbands’, eventually, nature played its part and stepped in. That’s when women miscarried, or had stillbirths, or sometimes worse. Sometimes, babies were born that only lived a few hours, just enough to imprint their tiny faces on their parents’ brains. And that’s when the real problems started, the ones in the head that required therapy, or pills, or both, with no guaranteed cure.

  Best to be happy with two healthy children, Doc McPherson said. Don’t tempt fate or God. As much as he wanted more children, Rupe wasn’t going to risk hurting or good God, losing Evie. She was everything to him: his life, his breath, his heart. So, he settled for Quinn and Annalise and took the doctor’s name in Revere where he got snipped and protected Evie from any further pregnancies. It wasn’t ever something he thought he’d be doing. In fact, he often joined the other men in hoots of laughter when they discovered one of them had gone and gotten snipped. Capon, they called him. Neuter. But he risked the names and the jokes for Evie.

  Anything for Evie.

  There were times, christenings and one-year-old birthday parties for his nieces and nephews, when he caught Evie watching the babies, eyes misted, mouth parted, with awe and yearning, a deep, gut-splitting need that filled him with grief, made him wish for a half-second that they’d tried one more time. But that was a foolish notion, dangerous, too. He wouldn’t put Evie at risk. There’d never been much sense talking about it, especially after the last miscarriage that cost her two pints of blood and three weeks in bed. Some women just weren’t made to carry babies, and his wife was one of them.

  There was a bounty of Burnes blood running around the town though; young and old in pick-up trucks and scooters or Fords, copper-haired, strong-armed and strong-willed, blue-eyed and sun-weathered. Rupe was the oldest of five, followed by Les, Tom, Pete, and Rita, all married but Pete, all having three, four, or five children, and all living less than five miles from one another, except for Pete who owned a spread outside of town. He didn’t have any children, at least none he claimed, though there was a girl several years back who tried to pin a paternity suit on him. Too bad the baby came out darker than a coal miner’s face.

  It took Evie a while to get used to the Burnes family. They were a boisterous group who made it their business to know what was going on inside the family and who never hesitated to voice an opinion, solicited or not.

  Hell, if you had a complaint on your mind, get it out and be done with it. If not, shut up and pass the potatoes. Evie kept it all inside, tighter than a drum, and though years with the Burnes brood had lightened her up a bit, she was still what he’d classify as reserved. Rupe figured part of it was due to growing up with no siblings to fight with, just her and her ma. It didn’t help that every word out of a Burnes mouth was a half-yell. Running a chipper and saws three feet from your ears for twenty-five years didn’t help either. The old man was part deaf by the time he reached forty, though he denied the hell out of it. Even Rupe had to turn and face a person if they were talking to him or he couldn’t make out the words.

  It was a rough life, working outdoors, busting your bones in heat, snow, rain, creaking out of bed at 5:00 A.M., ignoring the stiffness in your back, the arthritis in your knees. He blew out a knee ten years ago when a log fell on him, and three years before that, he caught two fingers in his chain saw and lost one up to the first joint. Only good thing, it was his middle finger and he never used it much anyway, less he was flicking Pete the bird. Evie bought him a pair of insulated gloves the first year they were married, said if he didn’t start wearing them in the dead of winter, he’d be losing all of his fingers. So, he started wearing them, not that a Burnes had ever given in to weakness but there was a certain common sense to what she said. Some days, he felt like a twenty-year-old, hauling logs, running Bobcats, crawling in ditches. And then there were others, the damp, cold ones, where his forty-four years seemed like sixty-four.

  He didn’t want that kind of life for Quinn. As much as Rupe hated to see him leave Corville, Quinn needed to get educated, use his head so he wouldn’t have to bury himself with his own hands. The boy was smart; he’d make a good lawyer, or maybe a doctor, anything but driving tractors and backhoes, freezing or burning up, wearing overalls plastered with mud and spending half his life in a ditch. Not for his boy. He didn’t want him limping around on a bum knee or bad shoulder from the beating the earth would give him. Rupe wanted life to be easier for Quinn and by God, he’d do everything in his power to see that it was.

  Chapter 3

  Evie flours the rolling pin, then proceeds to flatten the dough. Apple pie is Rupe’s favorite and she’s got just enough time to get it in the oven before she starts dinner. She hadn’t planned on making a pie today but Eulis brought her a bag of Cortlands and despite the kind gesture, they are already soft and bruised. One more day and they’ll be good for nothing but applesauce.

  Her mother hadn’t been much good in the kitchen; she’d been a heat and re-heat kind of cook, from a box mostly, and Evie had done the same until she married into the Burnes family. They make everything from scratch; the only box in the kitchen is the baking soda. Mabel Burnes taught Evie the names of every utensil in her kitchen drawer, showed her the difference between mincing and chopping, braising and broiling, and how a pinch of oregano and a clove of garlic could change a meal.

  Rupe likes his mother’s cooking and Evie has spent long hours in front of the white gas stove trying to emulate her mother-in-law’s recipes. She’s done a pretty decent job, too; the gravy is dark, double-strained to remove even the tiniest lump, the London broil is pink, the mashed potatoes filled with butter. Even the iced tea is hand-brewed and steeped in the sun, just the way Mabel does, just the way Rupe likes it. In the early years, pleasing Rupe filled her hours, sucked out the loneliness of Amelia’s death and made Evie feel like she belonged. Once Quinn and Annalise came along, the doing for others tripled, then quadrupled, as she cooked Rupe’s favorite meals, boiled bottles, hand-washed diapers, scrubbed cabinets and floors so the children wouldn’t catch germs, read to them, sang to them, crocheted their first afghans, and still, still kneaded bread and baked apple pies.

  On and on it goes, one year, two, five, then ten, the doing without conscious thought, the going and going, one continual motion, draining and pulling and finally collapsing to a dull fizzle. No one notices Evie needs a break, a day even, just to herself, to walk, to sit, to think. Burnes women never stop; they push on, the backbones behind their husbands, push hard until they fall over. Rupe’s father, Burt, puffs out proud when he tells the tale of how his own mother once beheaded and plucked three hens, drove his old man’s tractor in scorching July heat, and even hand-washed four loads of laundry, plus hung them out to dry. All this and she
was eight and a half months pregnant!

  It isn’t that the Burnes men are cruel or unfeeling, because they aren’t, though soft words don’t come easily to any of them, including the women. Mabel says she’ll take a side of beef and a cord of wood rather than some man’s fancy words that do nothing to keep her children’s belly full and their feet warm. Rupe has only said I love you a handful of times: right after the first time he and Evie made love; when Quinn and Annalise were born; on Evie’s thirtieth birthday; and two years ago, when Evie contracted a viral infection that laid her up for five days. She was weak and feverish, looking small and insignificant in their big four-poster bed with her dark hair matted against her cheeks, eyes sunken, lips parched. Rupe rushed her to Doc McPherson when her temperature reached 103.8, demanding the doctor give her something to make her better. But Doc McPherson sent Rupe and Evie home with instructions for rest, fluids, Tylenol, and patience to let the infection run its course. Rupe Burnes was not a patient man. He spent his days pacing the bedroom, watching Evie toss and turn, her skin layered in sweat. Nights weren’t much better with Rupe doing the tossing and turning as he lay next to her. Don’t leave me, Evie, don’t leave me, he whispered in the dark. I love you, Evie girl, please don’t leave me. There was raw grief and torment twisted in his words, more confession than profession of his love for her.

  So what if that is the last time he said the words? Mabel is right; fancy words are frivolous and empty. Actions are what count, what uncover the truth in a person’s heart. Doesn’t Rupe bring her a paycheck every two weeks? Didn’t he hand-dig a new flower bed for her last Saturday; bring in peat and topsoil, even though he was dead tired and aching, just so she could plant more roses? And if she opens the kitchen cabinets, aren’t they lined with gifts from her husband; a fancy mixer, an electric knife, a food processor, a meat slicer?

  Gifts of love. Gifts of sustenance. Isn’t that enough?

  “Evie?”

  She looks up, forces herself to focus. “Rupe. You’re early.”

  Her husband wipes his forehead with a balled-up red bandana. “Axle broke on the tractor. Eulis is coming out to take a look at it.”

  Evie eases the pie crust into the plate, smoothes out the air pockets, and crimps the edges with her thumb and forefinger. “There’s leftover turkey in the fridge. I could make you a sandwich.”

  “I’m good.” He pulls a glass from the cupboard, turns on the spigot. “I just need water. It’s so damn hot out there.”

  “It’s supposed to reach ninety-two today.” She begins scooping the apple mixture into the crust.

  “Damn.” He downs the water, fills the glass again. “I tell you, Evie, sometimes I wish I worked in an air-conditioned office.”

  This makes her laugh. “Honest, Rupe. Can you picture it? The windows don’t even open in most of those buildings.”

  He laughs too. “I’d look like a fool in a monkey suit, wouldn’t I? Probably strangle myself with my own tie.”

  She smiles, sprinkles cinnamon on the heap of apple mixture. “It would be a sight.”

  “I think I’ll leave the fancy duds to Quinn. That boy’s bound to end up in some highfalutin office.”

  “He’s talking about law.”

  “He’d make a damn good lawyer. Hell, he knows how to argue his way out of anything.”

  “But he’s a wonderful artist, too.”

  Rupe finishes his water, sets the glass in the sink. “I don’t care what he does, as long as he believes in it. You gotta believe in what you’re doing or nothing’s worthwhile.”

  She nods, dips her head so he can’t see her face. “You’re right.”

  “I’m going back to the site to wait for Eulis. Those the apples he gave you?” He plucks a sugared piece from the top of the pie, plops it in his mouth.

  “Yes.”

  “They’re good.” He gives her a peck on the forehead. “I’ll see you around six.” His big hand touches her hair, and then he is gone.

  Her husband’s words stay with her long after he’s gone to meet Eulis, long after the sweet aroma of apple fills the air, long after the mixing bowls are washed and dinner is started. You gotta believe in what you’re doing or nothing’s worthwhile. He is right, he is so absolutely right.

  What do you do when you don’t believe, when you go through motions that were your life but were not you; that were what you did, but did not define you? What do you do when you don’t recognize the person in the mirror, the one performing years of the same task, making sound into words that can’t be understood? What do you do then?

  She loves her family, loves them all, even Mabel and Burt. They’ve taken her in, cared for her, rescued her from grief and loneliness, and she owes them. She will always owe them. And she owes her children, too. They’ve given her purpose, and they deserve a mother who can give them purpose, one who will lay out an example of what it is to live and be alive. Not a shell, not an empty broken piece of unrecognizable human flesh moving in and out of their days, more observer than participant.

  It is the painting that makes her come alive. She lives inside of it, right in the core of the oil: red, purple, yellow, blue, black, breathing its heavy scent, smearing the slickness of it on her fingers, her shirt, her face. She’s tried to hide from it for years, denying the pull, instead forcing herself into layer upon layer of daily existence that is too tight, too restrictive, too foreign. But lately, the stretches of midnight to early morning hours in the attic have increased, the need to be up there, hidden away, free, have grown into a wild, nameless yearning that calls to her, seducing her soul with its promises.

  She knows who she is, who she has always been, despite years and miles, a husband and two children. It all comes down to honesty. But what she does not know, and what she fears most, is acknowledging what she is not.

  Because that will change her life forever.

  Chapter 4

  “Tell me something, Evie Burnes, how can you stand to bake pies for that damned man?”

  Evie sips her coffee, shrugs. She looks forward to Tuesday morning coffee with her friend at Hazel’s Diner, but sometimes Brenda gets carried away, even for Brenda. “The pies aren’t for Reverend Thurston. They’re for the church and besides, Rupe likes me to donate, says that aside from being Christian, it’s good business.”

  Brenda snorts. “You need to tell that husband of yours if he spent a little more time listening to town gossip and a little less worrying about business, he’d know old Reverend Thurston is a pervert who’s got his hands in the coffers and Suzie Singleton’s pants.”

  “Brenda!” Evie leans over, tries to hush her friend. Brenda Coccani isn’t an easy one to hush or hide for that matter. At 5’11”, she wears bright red lipstick, bright red scarves, and bright red ringlets. And her voice is loud, not soft like Evie’s, but horn-blowing, cattle-call loud, the kind that makes heads turn during normal conversation. A few heads turn with the mention of Reverend Thurston. Of course, they must know what Evie and Brenda are talking about. Everyone knows or suspects, except probably Rupe, who detests gossip and refuses to believe any of it, even when it can be substantiated and transformed from gossip to information. He got furious when his brother Les said he heard Reverend Thurston was practicing more than choir hymns in the rectory with nineteen-year-old Suzie Singleton.

  Brenda leans forward, positions and repositions her full chest on top of the cream Formica tabletop. She drops her voice two octaves, to just below normal speaking range. “I heard they did it in the basement of the church, after Sunday school let out.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “And his wife caught them.” Evie opens her mouth to speak, but Brenda holds up her hand. “Wait. I know you hate to think anybody would fart crosswise, but I’m telling you the truth. The man was banging little Suzie and Pauline caught him.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Pauline’s very own sister-in-law.”

  “Georgette? Why?”

  “Why not?” Bre
nda picks at a chipped nail. “She’s hated the bitch since Thurston married her. You know how this town treats people like trash unless you’re one of them.” Brenda pulls her full lips into a satisfied smile. “Seems our good Reverend Thurston is making restitution to Suzie’s family. I’ll bet the proceeds from those pies will go toward making things right with the Singletons.”

  “But what about Suzie? Who’s going to help her?”

  Brenda shrugs. “Seems the poor girl thinks she’s in love with the old fool.”

  Suzie Singleton helped Evie make pumpkin rolls for the church bazaar. She’s a tiny blonde with blue eyes and a sweet smile who wears jeans and sweatshirts most of the time and looks more child than woman.

  “And that’s not all.” Brenda stretches herself closer to Evie, the heart chain around her neck dangling against the tabletop. “Georgette says the girl might be pregnant.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “I think God has nothing to do with this one.”

  “Does Reverend Thurston know?” It seems absurd to refer to him as “Reverend” after what Brenda has just revealed.

  “He knows.” She raises a dark brow, perfectly shaped in a high arch. “And do you know what that bastard told her?” Her voice rises, levels, rises higher as her face turns a dull red. “He told her to get rid of it.”

  “An abortion?”

  “Sure as hell not something you’d expect a man of the cloth to say now, is it? ’Course, sure as hell don’t expect a preacher to stick his dick in a young parishioner’s honey pot either now, do you?”

  Evie shakes her head, stares at the tiny crack along the rim of her coffee cup. It is so faint she can hardly make it out, but it is there, and soon, after several more uses, the crack will spread, particles chipping away bit by bit, until one day, the hot liquid will seep through the openings and the cup will fall apart, burning, even scarring the unsuspecting user.